Unfinished business in Canonchet Woods

December 18, 2011

The drainage pipe in the retention pond right off of Hopkinton Hill Road. The berm was rebuilt after it gave way in August, and has already begun to erode again.

HOPKINTON - The Canonchet Woods subdivision off of Route 3 in Hopkinton looks like an unfinished neighborhood. There is a large drainage pipe just feet away from the road, sticking out of a faded and worn berm that protects the road from a massive retention pond.

In the back, well beyond the berm, is a lonely back-hoe, and across the street a port-a-john sits in the front yard of a vacant house.

The problem: the subdivision has been in this unfinished state for over three years.

Rick and Cassandra Ogren, first-time home-buyers and residents of 12 Hopkinton Hill Road, the only entrance or exit to the subdivision, moved in in September 2008, and not much has changed since then.

âWhen we first moved in, the road was only completed up to the stop sign,â said Ogren, âbut we were promised the whole development would be finished soon.â

âNow, no one knows what âsoonâ is.â

There have been severe problems with the neighborhoodâs unfinished infrastructure since day one for the Ogrens. Drainage issues have especially plagued the area, Ogren said there have been problem with water, snow and mud very frequently.

âIt has been three years and we are still dealing with water and mud coming down from the area where they built that berm,â Ogren said.

Once the water and mud spilled onto the road, there was no place for it to go. Ogren said that he and his neighbors were promised by the developers that the drainage issues would be solved when the topcoat of the road was put on, but that itself took three years.